


After Has Never Felt So Incomplete

by BladedDarkness



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, no happy ending YET, post Season Four finale, unsatisfactory outcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BladedDarkness/pseuds/BladedDarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina always visits on Emma's birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Has Never Felt So Incomplete

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't meant to be my thoughts on humanity, sin, or virtue. It just was born out of an odd little thought bubble. And then I went on perhaps a little too long about that little thought.

Henry didn't react as Regina set an empty bowl and the carton of milk in front of him. “You're going to see her today, then,” he said, not surprised. He expected as much. He walked into the pantry to pick out his cereal, feeling a twinge as he watched his mother twist her ring around and around. Henry grabbed the box of poptarts instead.

“It's her birthday,” she replied quietly, arms wrapped around herself. “The day we met.”

The pain in her voice lanced through him with a flash of annoyance. “I know,” he said, sharp and strained. “I brought her to Storybrooke, after all.” He crumpled the foil in his hand, felt the pastry break and crunch. The seam tore open and the crumbs slid through his fingers. It felt far too familiar.

Her hand cupped his cheek, brushing his hair back behind his ear. “Do you want to come with me? I can write a note – your grandmother would understand.” Only too well.

“No.” Henry shook his head. “I'll go by later, after school. Maybe.” Or next week. If he could stand it.

Unlikely.

“Henry,” Regina chided, already resigned, knowing how the discussion would go.

He grumbled, shoving the unused bowl away. “It's not like she cares that it's her birthday,” he muttered, chin tilted up and hands clenched.

Regina pulled him close and he wrapped his arms around her. “She's been alone on enough birthdays.” She shoved the kernel of guilt further down inside her, pushing away the fact that she felt partially responsible. It did no good to dwell on it.

Henry squirmed away. “I should go.” He kissed her cheek, grabbing Emma's – his – keys from the table. He kissed her cheek again, froze and shrugged. He would be embarrassed about it another day, she knew. The same way she knew the second was for Emma. “I love you.” And then he shoved a poptart into his mouth and was out the door. Regina listened to the familiar knocking in the engine as it started and watched the yellow death trap leave her driveway as he headed to school.

She put the milk away and locked the door behind her, hesitating only a second. Magic was quicker, easier. But that had never been her way. Emma had been raised in this world deprived of true magic, so today Regina would honor that. There was a solidarity in their shared twenty-eight years without magic, heightened by the fact that she was the only full-time resident that had been aware of every passing year. For every thing she could remember from the early years that Emma had not, Emma had known of a technological advancement that had not pierced Storybrooke's isolation over the years. Removed from each other, they had still nonetheless learned the ways of this realm over the same time span, truly aware of the passage of years. Of being largely alone.

It was an inconsequential similarity amongst many, but she clung to it today.

She ignored the sad smile Maurice gave her as she picked up her usual order from Game of Thorns, but the sympathetic faces of the residents of Storybrooke were harder to block out as she walked at a clipped pace to her destination.

Regina sat carefully, nose crinkling at the wilted and dried white flowers Snow had left last time she visited. She wasn't sure when that had been, but she was sure it was a while ago. The Charming brood had just expanded again six months ago, so the two were often far too busy with their three other children to regularly bring flowers for their first born. None of the children had met Emma save for Prince Neal, who was far too young to remember her. The Charmings never brought their offspring by, though she knew they told what few stories they could about their oldest.

Far too few. The thought brought a bitter taste to her mouth and another pain in her heart.

She swallowed uncomfortably. This was the hardest part. She never knew how to start and Emma could not prompt her. She was accustomed to it and was not foolish enough to expect some sign or response to her words anyways. But it didn't make speaking any easier.

“Emma,” she whispered, and though she could not trick herself into believing it, she imagined the tentative, shy “Hi.”

“I feel like your mother is constantly pregnant. They never stop, do they? I know they just had Eva not too long ago, but I expect them to announce another one any day now.” Regina shifted. “Snow made me her godmother. I wanted to decline, the way I did with Leo, but. Well, she looks like you. And if I hadn't accepted, the idiots were going to make 'Cruella' her middle name. I don't understand why they keep naming their children after people that have been murdered.” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly. You were lucky to miss out on their bizarre naming fetish.”

She paused out of habit, shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her.

“Henry is seventeen now. He'll be eighteen in a few weeks and going off to college next fall.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “It's been five years, Emma.” She still had nightmares about the darkness wrapping itself around the blonde, the black tendrils choking the life out of her, removing and scrambling every piece of Emma in the process. “You idiot,” she whispered hoarsely.

Regina stood swiftly, smoothing her skirt. She was used to the ache when she visited Emma, but some days were worse, the pain more acute. Today was one of those days, as if the dagger of the Dark One had pierced her heart, or perhaps was shaving splinter-sized slivers from her heart slowly. She sobbed silently.

“I'll be back another day, Miss Swan.”

A cold hand grabbed her wrist as she turned to leave.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Emma murmured, eyes glazed but half-focused on Regina. “You're supposed to be happy, Regina.” She tugged Regina closer to the bed, curling her fingers through Regina's. “I made you a promise.”

Regina stroked Emma's hair with her free hand. It was far too limp and dull and she made a note to bring some shampoo of her own to try to reclaim its past vibrancy. “It's all right. You wouldn't know what to do if I was smiling all the time,” she teased and Emma laughed, her eyes clearing more.

The darkness has razed her mind and scoured her soul, leaving her body little more than a husk. What took centuries to be wrought in previous Dark Ones was done in seconds to Emma, her light magic offering little protection once the darkness was inside. It had made little sense. Surely the Savior should have the power to repel if not destroy such evil?

The only answer they had was an imperfect theory proposed by Belle, conceived shortly before Rumpelstiltskin's death when he was at his weakest – and therefore most truthful.

The darkness was inhuman, not meant to be contained by a vessel as mortal as a human. Its magic could extend life indefinitely. But that magic was also a corruption, a poison infecting the user. It was pure taint, darkness given form and will.

The darkness of humanity was less so. It was its own form of sin, disassociated from the darkness of the Dark One. Belle's theory – which was little more than guesswork from bits of parchment and Rumpel's whispered pleas – was that the two did not mix or combine, but, along with human goodness, worked opposite each other.

Human wickedness was selfish, and while the darkness was as well, it was not for any means but for spreading its chaotic taint. Human sin was meant to counterbalance human virtue, birthed in equal amounts and influenced by the deeds of the human as they lived, and the darkness trumped both.

It was akin to two poisons being mixed together, one vastly more fatal than the other. But the weaker of the two – human darkness – would nullify and cancel out some of the more potent venom of the Dark One. It was a poison working alongside an antidote, but together they were still not a cure.

But Emma had an emptiness, a void that was ripe for the darkness to fill, where her own human wickedness had been ripped from her. She had been a creature unbalanced, and the world had thrust misfortunes upon her in an attempt to correct her equilibrium. Emma's misdeeds were scarcely adequate to restore the balance. Her lightness – even her Savior-product-of-true-love magic – had not been enough and the heavy force of the darkness had ravaged her being far faster than it would have had she been whole.

Snow and David's attempt to save their daughter from her human impulses had brought her ultimate destruction instead.

Worst were the moments of clarity when Emma shined through, and Regina was painfully aware that she would slip away once again, too soon. The darkness had stripped too much of her away so violently. Those moments where Emma was engaged and aware were too few and far apart.

“You said Henry was going to college?” Her voice was rough, and she reached with shaky fingers for the glass beside the bed. Regina wanted to look away or help, but she did neither,

“Soon.” Regina sat in the chair again.

“How long has it been?” Emma looked down at the bed, frustrated. “I don't remember.”

She lifted Emma's face back up, basking in the facial expressions. Too often did she visit and that face was blank and unseeing, eyebrows perhaps furrowed in helpless confusion, or twisted into dark malice and madness. “Five years.”

Emma huffed. “I feel old.” She pushed herself out of the bed, wobbly and stumbling, gripping Regina's hand tightly.

“It's your birthday,” Regina said, smirking. Emma groaned.

“Did you at least bring cake?” She pulled away and dragged the other chair Regina's side before dropping in it.

Regina waved her hand, a large unlit cupcake appearing on the nightstand. It was magic, bending her rule for today, but it was indulgent and for Emma, who smiled brightly.

Emma who ate far too little nowadays, rarely cognizant enough to crave food and prone to whiplash mood swings and upturned trays. Regina ensured that her menu never wanted for variety, but even that seldom tempted Emma. She smiled softly as Emma bit into the cupcake, blue frosting smearing along the corner of her mouth.

Emma munched happily, socked feet propped up on the bed, finishing the cupcake in six bites. The blue frosting remained even after she used a napkin, but Regina said nothing. Her mind conjured a similar image from years ago, Emma's boots on the desk at the sheriff's station as she chewed a bearclaw.

The familiar pang of longing hitched in her chest, and Emma took her hand. “Thanks,” she muttered shyly, her tongue sneaking out to lick her lips, tip dyed blue as well. She eyed Regina's hand in hers. “You haven't married him yet.”

“No. He hasn't been around for a long time.”

“You've told me this before – I think.” She had, a few times. Emma laid her head against Regina's shoulder, who hummed for a few minutes. The silence was comfortable until Emma broke it again. “So here's the thing...” Emma fidgeted with a loose thread.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“Emma – ”

“No, I don't know when I'll be me again and I need you to know. I love you, Regina.”

“I know.” She _did_  know, and that hurt worse than any other knowledge. She turned to look at Emma, insides sparking as their eyes met and the familiar gleam in Emma's eyes pulled at her. “Happy Birthday, Emma.” She basked in Emma's presence, in her gaze until it faded.

It didn't always happen quickly. Sometimes it was slow and gradual, the way Emma would melt away from her, becoming less Emma and more unrecognizable. Other times she would change from one second to another. Only Regina could pinpoint the moment it started, from experience and the spark of magic that would strike and die immediately when Emma slipped away and something else would take her place. Most often it was nothingness, blank stares and silence. Sometimes madness would take hold, violent outbursts and rants that required Emma to be restrained. And rarely, the Dark One would emerge, caged and defanged, magic-less in the backlash of Emma's destruction and with no ability to shift hosts. Regina loathed the last occurrence the most.

Each was painful to watch, though.

“Hey. Let's leave Storybrooke. Magic did this, so I have to get better out there.”

Regina bit her lip, eyes dropping to her lap. “We've already tried, Emma.”

“Then we try again.”

“Emma.”

“No! We're just – we're not trying hard enough. There has to be something you missed!” Emma thumped her fist against the arm of the chair. “You just have to keep looking, okay? And then you can save me and we can be together.”

Such pretty words. Regina fought the lump in her throat again.

“We can be happy.”

“We can,” Regina murmured. _They couldn't._

“Are you happy?” Emma touched her arm, the same way she had when the wraith was upon them. The frosting stood out against the paleness of her lips.

“I'm happy when you're with me and I'm with you, Emma.”

“I want you to be happy.” She stared out the window that was unbreakable like everything else in the room. “I made you happy in New York, didn't I?”

“Yes, dear.” _Never happened._

“No fairytales...”

“Let's get you back in bed, dear.” Emma offered no resistance and once she tucked the sheets around her, she wettened the corner of a napkin and dabbed away the frosting.

“I love you too,” she said tenderly, kissing her temple softly. Her traitorous heart leapt and she held her breath, but like every other time, no welcoming burst of magic accompanied her touch. She stood suddenly and started to collect her things. Emma paid her no mind, already gone.

“Oh, Mayor Mills! I didn't know you were here today,” the nurse blurted as she entered the room. “No Henry?”

Regina chuckled, the sound slightly hollow. “I slipped in at about nine this morning. And he has school.” It had not stopped him before on occasion and she allowed it, but it was rare that he came during school hours.

The nurse nodded. “She was asking for you earlier, around seven.” Regina had feared that. At Regina's quirked eyebrow, she added, “Emma was very eager to... find you.”

Regina groaned. “That Charming spirit,” she scoffed though internally she was pleased and her eyes grew wet. She suspected the nurse knew it too. “Perhaps one day she will.”


End file.
